Photo by From a second story.

What’s the biggest benefit to you in being a freelancer? For me, it’s the beauty of having the freedom to choose what I work on, especially when maintaining multiple skills. That means that you can mix entrepreneurial endeavors with your freelancing. In fact, if you have expert skills in something, creating expert content between projects builds up a long-term stream of revenue.

For example, take a look at a Peter D. Marshall‘s website, Film Directing Tips. Whether or not you have any interest in being a filmmaker, it’s worth a visit to his site to see how he’s supplementing his income. I have no idea whether he’s a freelancer or not, but he is a veteran filmmaker of over three decades. He’s taken his knowledge and created expert content and made it available for sale via his website. The website’s blog is a good example of blogging as a vehicle. The blog’s posts exist solely to promote his knowledge and his paid content, which includes audio files, video, PDF reports – all geared to the aspiring director.

This is an model you can adapt for almost any expert knowledge or skill that you have. If your freelance career is based around these skills, you’re likely to be something of an expert in them. Continue Reading

Photo by NEOPIXX.

We all know the old saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” But is there anything wrong with being very good at one thing and not too bad at a few other things? As a freelancer, are you a specialist or a generalist?

In some countries, being a specialist is more honored, but I’m a generalist. As a freelancer, I think it’s a necessity to be a generalist. In fact, if you’re a web-working freelancer, it’s a key to freelance career success in a global market. It’s what will keep you out of the feast or famine phenomenon.

I’m talking about having one or two core skills that you are (or will) become very good at, and a few sub-skills that you pay less attention to for now. For example, if you write, it’s worthwhile to have another skill — maybe podcasting. If you’re a designer, learn to code blog platforms too. If you’re a coder, learn to be a technical writer or maybe create screencasts to teach the use of your code. If you’re a consultant, learn how to be a trainer, as well. Always prioritize your specialty skill first, but make sure you have other skills to fall back on. Continue Reading

Photo by JasonRogers

Picture this.

You’re at an interview for a project. Your potential client decides to select you for the job. Better still, they are willing to give you double the rate you had requested.

As you walk out of the meeting feeling confident about winning the project, you hear your inner voice start to nag you about a few small details. By the time you walk out of the building, you realize something: there’s a certain thing they asked you to do that requires a skill you haven’t mastered yet… and the project is due in 24 hours.

I’ve run into this problem a few times in my life. I accepted projects without really knowing if I could finish them. And yet, all of these projects helped pushed me to the next level. Nowadays, I understand why I was able to advance myself through that pressure: by using Parkinson’s Law.

According to Wikipedia, the law holds that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” This means that when given a limited amount of time, your focuses increases, and you’re forced to give attention only to what you need to do. By using this powerful law, you’ll be able to perform your best work.

You can also use this same law to increase your skill level. Continue Reading

Photo by Pasotraspaso.

The coffee break is a place for freelancers to share tips and lessons gleaned from experience, with a single question as our starting point. Feel free to address the question and each-other in the comments section.

Lively discussions have been a real characteristic of the FSw community — this is something we want to help create more of.

This week’s discussion point is:

What’s the single most important piece of advice you would share with anyone just embarking on a freelance career?

Muhammad Saleem is a social media consultant and a top-ranked community member on multiple social news sites.

This post is part 4 of 10 in our groundbreaking series on how freelancers can use social media and the principles of simplicity to build their business.

Day 4 – The Fourth Law of Simplicity: Learn

Knowledge makes everything simpler.

It seems paradoxical that achieving simplicity would be such a laborious and complex process, but it’s true. Simplicity rarely comes naturally and we have to learn how to achieve simplicity in our daily routines and how to live by its principles.

There are entire industries and business models built on simplifying the learning process and teaching people how things work, how to do things, and lately, step-by-step guides to performing certain activities online or using web 2.0 sites and technologies. Even this site simplifies for it’s expansive audience the process of getting started as a freelancer, how to price yourself, finding freelance jobs, dealing with clients, and remaining productive as a freelancer from day-to-day. Continue Reading